


Solaris

by PrecariousSauce



Category: Dark Souls (Video Games)
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, F/M, Gen, Headcanon, Not Canon Compliant - Dark Souls 3, Sexual Content, Solaire as Firstborn Theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-03-16 14:28:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3491768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrecariousSauce/pseuds/PrecariousSauce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What’s your name?” </p><p>The Man keeps staring at her, his eyes as vacant as a cloudless day. But though matted and soiled his hair is the kind of gold the Nobles spend generations breeding for, and from a blood and dirt-stained face his eyes shine like two fragments of the sky. </p><p>This man is… she’s not sure what he is, beyond a sense that this man is more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The only important footnote that has to be at the beginning is that Gwyndolin is going to show up a few times in this story and I need to clarify this right here:
> 
> When depicted from outsiders' perspectives, Gwyndolin will be referred to with "she/her/hers" pronouns, as that is what the average medieval European stranger with an average medieval European understanding of gender would think upon seeing Gwyndolin.
> 
> But when depicted from their own perspective or a neutral perspective, because Gwyndolin never uses any gendered terms or pronouns to refer to themselves I will be be using "they/them/theirs" pronouns. As someone who is comfortably cis, I am in no position to properly wade through the minefield that is Gwyndolin's gender, so I'm just going to kind of sidestep around it. My apologies if this offends anyone despite my best efforts.

There was no such thing as truly _good_ nights in this business; nights at The Windscarred Crag ranged from “bearable” to “horrific”. As she bites, kicks, claws, and wrenches against the hand buried in her hair, a part of Iris knows that if she doesn’t get out of this hold now the night will go from simply “bad” to “horrific” quicker than she can blink.

The other girls and few other patrons who give a damn are shouting, running after them and not close enough to make any difference. Her nails leave shallow red furrows in his arm and she can see where her dagger had fallen every time she blinks, wishes she had it just so she could cut the hair he was holding. If she survives, she’s going to chop it all off.

She digs her heels into the street and yowls like a cat as he yanks her forward. He’s too big and she’s too small. The light of the brothel door is growing farther away, the voices of any who could save her are getting lost on the wind. This is it. Either she’ll stagger back to Crag in pieces at dawn, or they won’t find her until she washes all the way down to the Fivefinger Delta.

A wet, uneven _crack_ breaks her chain of thought and the ruffian’s hold on her hair.

She doesn’t realize what’s happening until a large, calloused hand hits her stomach, roughly pushing her out of the way. Iris staggers backward, watching a positively filthy man slam his fist into her attacker’s nose a second time. The man is slighter than the rapscallion, and he smoothly ducks beneath a wildly swinging arm to smash his elbow into the thug’s collarbone.

Another sickening _crack_. He flows around the larger man like water, and every blow the grungy man lands breaks bones. Madame Faustine’s warm hands are on her shoulders, guiding her backwards towards the Crag as this mystery vagrant knocks the thug onto his arse and stomps on his knee, bending it backwards. Her attacker is weeping now, nose a mess of blood and bone, blinded by two black eyes. Likely, he’ll never walk again.

But The Man isn’t finished.

He grabs the thug’s shirt-collar and drags him to the edge of the road. He forces his mouth open, forces it around the curb. He keeps one foot on the broken man’s back. He brings the other one up, lets it hover for a second over the ruffian’s head.

And then, he _stomps_. Faustine whispers for her to look away, but Iris hears it too late. She can’t keep herself from heaving onto the stone.

When she finally looks up again, her brutal savior is looking at her. The Man looks Astoran– in fact, if you asked someone to describe an Astoran, they’d likely describe a much cleaner version of this man. He has the textbook long, noble face, sharp nose and wide eyes. His hair is long, limp and scraggly, while his face is in sore need of a razor. His simple shirt and breeches are torn near to tatters, and Iris can just barely tell that his shirt is supposed to be white through the dirt. His feet are bare, his left drenched with blood and stuck with bits of bone in the sole. She can see a net of nearly white scars beneath the filth on his arms.

Iris’ mouth opens without her permission; “What’s your name?” The Man keeps staring at her, his eyes as vacant as a cloudless day. But though matted and soiled his hair is the kind of gold the Nobles spend generations breeding for, and from a blood and dirt-stained face his eyes shine like two fragments of the sky. This man is… she’s not sure what he is, beyond just a sense that this man is _more_. More than what, she couldn't say. She glances up to Faustine– her signature North Catarina eyes are the color of knives and just as sharp as an idea cuts to the front of her mind.

“Tell me, Boy,” the Madame calls, moving to stand next to Iris but still keeping an arm on her shoulders, “Why did you come here? Why save a whore?” He gives Faustine the same blank stare, and for a brief moment Iris thinks that he doesn’t speak the common tongue. 

Then he speaks, and his voice is smooth and refined like imported silk; “This felt like the right place to go… I don’t know what this place is. But I felt like I should be here,” he looks down at the thug and The Man scowls, “This thing was scum. So I killed him.”

Faustine’s mouth is starting to pull into a smirk; “Just one more question. Are you any good with a blade?”

The Man’s brow furrows, and this question takes him a long time to answer; “… Yes?” Iris purses her lips into a frown. He doesn’t _know?_ Whatever Faustine’s plotting seems unwise. But she’s in charge. So Iris waits.

The older woman smirks in full and she passes Iris to Mirabelle, walking towards The Man as she says, “Then I have a deal for you. You have the look of a man with no place to stay. If you kill _things_ like that,” she gestures to the body with a flick of her wrist, “for us, you can stay here. However, you’ll have to do it a little cleaner– don’t want the guards knocking on our door. That sound good?”

Slowly, gingerly, The Man nods.

And with that, the girls begin filing back inside and the customers out onto the street– Windscarred Crag policy is that if someone dies, the Crag is closed for the rest of the night. Iris sees Mirabelle’s deep frown as Faustine all but drags The Man into the brothel. With a few murmured orders to get him cleaned up, the Madame passes Iris their newest addition (it feels strange to call him that, but she doesn’t quite have a better word). Mirabelle is at Faustine’s side, incredibly pale face angled up to glare at Faustine’s own swarthy face.

Iris hears Mirabelle hiss, “What exactly _are_ you thinking, Madame?”

She can hear the smirk in Faustine’s voice as she answers, “Don’t Astorans like to say that we should accept what the Gods give us? Well they gave us a handsome young man strong enough to break bones and not too proud to protect whores. I’m certainly not going to let someone _else_ take that.”

Iris brought The Man up to the washroom. She cut her own dark hair before she set to picking the pieces of bone out of his foot. Iris also found herself picking out glass and shards of sharp, black stones she’d never seen anywhere near the city. The Man didn’t say a word. He wasn’t staring at her anymore, but he was looking at her discarded hair on the floor like it was the most fascinating thing he’d seen that evening.

Iris felt herself speaking before she really realized she’d opened her mouth; “Are you from Astora?”

Once again, his brow furrows, and it takes him an unreasonably long time for him to answer, “Perhaps… Is this land called Astora?”

She frowns up at the sole of his foot and mutters, “You don’t know your name, you don’t know if you can use a sword, you don’t know where you _are_ … You’re a mess.”

He doesn’t seem to hear her, explaining in that same smooth and crisp tone, “All I know for certain is that I’ve been walking South for several weeks. I don’t remember anything beyond that.” A thought hits her, and Iris freezes; he came from the North. He doesn’t remember anything. Could he… He didn’t look it. But he could be.

Iris slowly looks up and she asks in a shaking voice, “Sir… You aren’t an Undead, are you?”

And for the first time his answer is quick and sharp; “No! Of course not! I _can’t_ –“ He stops, pursing his lips, looking away as he hisses under his breath, “ _Why_ can’t I…” The Man shakes his head and he looks back to Iris, “I’m not Undead.”

She holds his gaze for a moment, just staring into The Man’s intense blue eyes. Iris breaks contact. They’re _too_ intense, like the sky in the height of summer, when it’s so blue and so vast that you could fall up into it. She quickly asks if he needs any help cleaning himself up; he slowly answers that he doesn’t. With a curt nod, she moves to leave. And stops at the door.

The young woman turns and murmurs, “I should have said this earlier… Thank you for helping me.” He stares at her, eyes wide in awe and looking for all the world like a cleric who had read his first miracle. Then The Man smiles. It cuts through the dirt and blood on his face, a beam of pure sunlight.

“You’re welcome.”

* * *

_There was little the Dark Sun despised more than being sent to fetch their brother._

_The door opened and already the youngest of the Sun had to step around a discarded woman, naked, cold, and groaning as she rubbed her sore hip. There were countless more– most minor Goddesses, but Gwyndolin’s sharp eyes could pick out a few humans– scattered about the room and heaped upon each other as they drew closer to their brother. Whores and sheets hid everything below the Heir of Sunlight’s navel, and Gwyndolin was deeply thankful for that. The group on the bed were less a collection of people and more a writhing mass of limbs and skin, almost as if the Gravelord had suddenly grown flesh. Only her brother’s golden hair and lack of breasts mad him easy to spot at the head of the pulsating mound._

_He cracked open an eye, and immediately his face mirrored their own contempt;_ “Go away, Gwyndolin. As thou can see,” _he roughly grabbed a nearby breast for emphasis and Gwydolin honestly couldn’t tell which woman squeaked at the contact,_ “I have quite a lot of work to attend to.”

 _Gwyndolin’s frown is small, but their snakes writhe and hiss on the polished marble floor as they growl_ , “Thou knowest better than to think I wouldst come in here of my own will. I am here because Father hast summoned thee.”

 _The Heir of Sunlight scoffs and tweaks a nipple;_ “Then that order is twice as urgent.”

 _The Dark Sun crossed their arms over their chest and said the words they realized in retrospect they should have lead with;_ “Father is planning a second assault on Izalith.” 

 _Their brother’s hooded eyes snapped open wide and he was out of the gigantic bed in an instant, scattering the whores like so many autumn leaves;_ “Finally!” _The Heir of Sunlight ranted and raved about how Gwyn should have done this decades ago, but Gwyndolin had since stopped listening. They just sneered down at the rumpled sheets, stained to the point where they’d need to be burned. And Gwyn still sought to give his throne to this man. Age truly was eating away at his mind._

* * *

The Man cleans up nicely. All eyes are on him and they ghost over Iris, making her instinctually draw her shawl tighter around her shoulders. But she can’t blame them for staring. With his hair cut, his face clean, and his clothes just shy of brand new, The Man almost looks like a prince. He certainly walks like one; his back is straight, strides long and assured with his arm resting casually on the pommel of his blade. She has to walk at a trot to keep up with him. Not for the first time she wishes Faustine hadn’t sent him with her. Or sent her to run this errand at all. She didn’t like leaving the Crag. It wasn’t safe for her out here.

She brings her mind off her situation and onto that of her companion; “I’ve a question, Sir.” It takes him a moment to even hear her. The Man’s impossibly blue eyes get caught on every passerby dressed in something other than brown, every stray dog running across the street to a safe alleyway, every bit of sunlight glinting off the windows.

But he _does_ hear her, and he looks down with a smile; “Yes?”

She frowns, an instinctive response to an easy smile, then asks, “You said last night that you felt like the Crag was ‘the place that you should be’, or some such thing. What… What does that even mean?”

The Man frowns, and his voice slows down as he replies, “I fear I can’t give a better explanation than that. I felt as though the Windscarred Crag was the place I needed to be. Or rather, the place I was _supposed_ to be. Like it was wrong for me _not_ to be there.”

“But you’ve never been to the Crag before,” Iris countered, “You didn’t even know what it _was_.”

His golden brow furrows as he responds, “That is all true, yes. But my mind is… How do I put it,” once again, The Man’s eyes drift to the sun as it glints off the glass and metal, “It’s as though I’m looking into a deep lake, and can just barely see something at the bottom. But whenever I try to look closer, all I get is lungs and eyes full of water,” he looks back to her with an uncertain laugh, “But I suppose that doesn’t make any sense.”

Iris shakes her head and says flatly, “No, it doesn’t.”

With another shivering chuckle, The Man looks away. Iris marches ever forward, and when she reaches their destination she tells The Man to wait outside. She ducks into a storefront, recites the words that will get her into a back room, exchanges coin for contraband and is out with time to spare. The Man is where she left him, but his back’s to her… Oh. She’d gotten so used to ignoring those who ignored her in turn she’d forgotten they were across the way from a church. The Man’s eyes are stuck to the rose window, the colored glass shining out from the stone. But his face holds more than simple awe. His eyes quiver as if they’re searching for something.

“Don’t pay them any mind,” Iris mutters, putting a hand on The Man’s shoulder and turning him away from the church, “They certainly won’t pay _you_ any.”

He arches an eyebrow; “They?”

Iris spits the words out like poison; “The Way of White. God King Gwyn’s personal cult. Sitting in their castles, preaching that we’re all unclean while they just pray towards Lordran and lounge on their gold. Dastards, the lot of them.”

“Gwyn…” She can see The Man turning the name over as his eyes drift to the sky. Her eyes burn and shut on instinct when she looks at the sun. But his just stare ahead, unbowed and unblinking.

* * *

_The royal family stood alone in the ashes._

_The Heir of Sunlight did not speak simply because he could not– tossing that much lightning, burning this much knowledge to less than even cinder, took much from him and all he could do was pant like a hound after a hunt._

_The Princess of Sunlight’s hands were clasped over her mouth and she was weeping in silence. Because her weakness was always her soft heart, and even now she saw only the older brother who ruffled her hair and made her laugh._

_The Dark Sun’s mouth was pressed into a tight line, because they knew all that would come out if it opened was a bitter cackle._

_And the Lord of Sunlight could not speak because he could not find the words. He did not know yet what one said to a disgraced prince._

_The Heir broke the silence with a rough bark;_ “Now dost thou see, Father?!”

 _Gwyn’s response was measured, but it shivered on every word;_ “I only see that I was foolish to let thou carry on as thou wished. And now it is too late.”

“Father, please–“ _Gwynevere could only choke out that much before her breath caught on a sob and she had to cover her mouth once more. Gwyndolin glanced over in time to see their brother’s eyes soften and his grip on his sword go slack. Suddenly, it was real._

 _Gwyn turned on his heel and his voice echoed through the empty room;_ “This night shall be thine last in Lordran. Thine last as a God. When the sun rises… Thou shalt no longer be my son.” _The blade clattered to the ground and the Heir’s knees hit the marble. His hands grasped at ashes. Gwynevere spun ‘round and rushed from the room, sobs breaking through just in time for her siblings to hear them._

_Gwyndolin lingered. And sneered._

“You brought this on yourself, Gwynedd.” _And their brother does not disagree._

* * *

When he’s certain they don’t need him, The Man sneaks from the brothel to the church. He listens to the words of their scripture, the tales of this Gwyn and his children, and he closes his eyes. He knows the names of the king and his many knights. He knows the faces and the voices of the celestial royalty. The tales feel… off, like a familiar room whose furniture has been moved five inches to the left. But he knows the tales, that’s what’s important. And they make him _feel_ , like no one and nothing in this land has made him feel since he realized he was wandering. They bring him closer to the bottom of the lake by inches. They make him feel _real_.

The Man fills the gaps. He must have believed in this Way of White, this Gwyn, with such faith that it could pull him down into the lake when nothing else could. But for so long, he cannot explain the stirring in his chest when he looks to the sun. It’s a longing, hollow and nostalgic. He feels pieces of it when he hears the names of Gwyn and his two daughters, when he hears of the son sent away. He feels a sharper piece of it when hears of the heir’s Warriors of Sunlight, righteous knights who protected all that was good in the Father’s name.

The Crag is often under siege from these beasts that walk like men– The Man cannot leave it for long. And he doesn’t want to; the Way of White says the women are unclean, but they are good to him, and to each other. They deserve protection like any other. But the sun tugs at him and during the calm, quiet day in the shade of his closet of a room he paints the emblem of the sun onto his armor, his shield. He sees it behind his eyelids when he tries to sleep, feels the warmth of its rays deep below his skin.

Eventually, the Madame notices his preoccupation. And with a smirk and no idea of what she’s about to do, she wonders, “Isn’t it about time we gave you a name?”

The Man opens his mouth, but one of the other women (Mirabelle, he believes) scoffs, “If you name it, Madame, you’ll just get attached to it.” The Man laughs on instinct. It’s a shield stronger than the one he uses in battle, tricking the enemy and himself into thinking the blow didn’t hurt, if only for a moment.

Faustine ignores Mirabelle and continues, “Since you’re so fond of the sun… How does ‘Solaire’ sound?”

His eyes light up and the answer spills out of his beaming mouth like spring water; “I-I love it, Madame!”

The older woman shakes her head and runs a hand through her grey hair; “My oh my, but you are an eager thing.” Her laugh is fond, and once more he thinks that the Way of White is wrong– she’s not unclean. He believes in the God King. He doesn’t believe in the church.

* * *

_At the eleventh hour, he stole away to the castle’s most dark and secret space. The tomb of the king. For now, it was cold, pristine, empty. The Heir’s footsteps seemed to echo for miles. But the minor Gods, the humans, all would know of this place very soon and flock to it with so much wailing and gnashing of teeth for a man whose true fate was worse than death. The prince’s heart still burned as hot as the First Flame as he remembered his father’s desperation, his surrender._ Surrender. _The word was a hideous and cowardly beast that slunk about on two legs, and he longed to run it through. But now was not the time._

_The Heir of Sunlight set the pages of the miracle upon the tomb that would stay empty for all eternity– a farewell, a message, and a reminder._

_He murmured to the man this coffin was built for and would never lie within it,_ “I will return. I swear to thee.”

* * *

_Solaire_. Solar. Of the sun.

Solaire stares at the sun and the longing is stronger, fuller. He is of the sun, and he stares at it and he _wants_. After being given his name, filling this gap comes simply. One day he is gazing at the sun, and he thinks that perhaps what he wants is no more than the sun itself. A sun of his very own.

A piece of him points out how little sense this makes. But a larger, denser piece ties itself around his ankle and drags him closer to the bottom of the lake. Perhaps it isn’t truly the sun he wants. But something about wanting the sun is _right_ , something about that is _real_. So, like every other piece, he clings to it like a rock in a stormy sea.

Gwyn is the God of the Sun. If his sun is anywhere, it’s in the land of the God King. But one can only reach the land of ancient lords if they are chosen. 

The Undead leak into Astora, running from the Asylum in the North or Thorolund's hunts in the South. As the Undead are found, caught, and carted away in larger and larger numbers, a whisper rumbles through the streets.  _Thou who art Undead, art chosen._

He chases Undeath, and catches it.

And then he chases the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Do not name your brothel The Windscarred Crag
> 
> 2) Yeah I tried about as hard at the Ye Olde English as the actual people writing the game's script did
> 
> 3) There were some things I had to keep vague, such as how Solaire willingly became Undead, and that's less to try and hide the premise of this story from the reader and more to hide the premise of this story from Solaire himself. Likely there are things that Solaire himself doesn't even know how he does them, only that he can.


	2. Before Noon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I considered making the Chosen Undead a faceless nobody for all of two seconds. The Chosen Undead is my personal Chosen Undead and if that bothers you then welp.
> 
> Also I'm going to be ignoring any and all changes and new information brought to the Dark Souls canon by Dark Souls 3 because fuck Dark Souls 3.

Solaire thinks to himself that he was incredibly lucky to be rounded up when he was– had the Undead Hunters found him on any other day and pushed him into any other cart heading for the Northern Asylum, he would not have been wedged into this corner of the wagon with Oscar. He’d gotten to know his neighbor very well during the long ride to the asylum; Oscar was a tried and true knight of the realm, having fought bravely for Astora for many years and gained quite a bit of respect before one day he awoke feeling the particular burn of the Darksign. He had asked Solaire if he intended to fulfill the prophecy of the Undead. 

Solaire’s throat had gone dry; he couldn’t lie, but he feared the truth would mark him as mad… The risks and rewards were all but negligible. So he told Oscar of his quest for his sun. Oscar had looked at him for a long while, his face unreadable through the knight’s helmet he kept on. But after a while, he simply shrugged.

“We’re all Undead outcasts,” the knight remarked, “No matter our quirks, we’ve no reason to push companionship away.”

The rest of the long ride was spent with Solaire getting drafted into Oscar’s plan to escape the asylum; their weapons had been confiscated, so their only asset in breaking out of the asylum would be each other. The plan was full of hypotheticals– it couldn’t help but be, since so few in Astora knew about the inner workings of the asylum (Oscar himself admitted he didn’t even know the building’s basic layout)– but it was what they had and Solaire had supposed it would be good enough. Oscar also shared his knowledge of Lordran itself– of how time there worked in mysterious ways and people could fall into different worlds and different times without warning, or have their world intersect with that of an Undead who came hundreds of years before them. 

Oscar had handed him a white stone with a rope tied around it; “I’m told these are the only way to have a measure of control over your travel between worlds in Lordran. Gods know if it’s true, but it can’t hurt, can it?”

Solaire had looked at the stone for a long time; Oscar had only met him during this ride, heard his insane-sounding reason for going to Lordran, and he’d given him one of only two of these precious stones on his person. Solaire had seen many knights of Astora in the Windscarred Crag and had to fight off almost all of them. They were men who had a clear idea of what they thought they deserved, and would get quite violent when they didn’t get it.

He’d pocketed the stone with a small smile as he thought to himself that Oscar, perhaps, was different.

In the end, all of Oscar’s planning turns out to be a little _more_ than good enough. In terms of being guarded and breaking out of their cell, it’s not nearly as difficult as Oscar had supposed during their planning. The guard on their cell is just about nonexistent, as the Undead were just being left to rot– the sturdy stone walls and two gigantic monsters above and below could see well enough to that. Oscar had laid out a complex and intricate series of plans on how to get a key to their cell; it isn’t necessary, as they’re lucky enough to have a door so rusted and ill kept that the two men break it down with a couple of strong, synchronized shoulder bashes.

No, the difficult part is finding their weapons. Thankfully the worst case scenario of the Undead Hunters just keeping their swords and shields hadn’t come to pass, but as they search the dark, winding halls of the asylum they quickly find that there’s no cache of pilfered effects, either. One of Oscar’s slim possibilities had come true– that their weapons were simply tossed to the roving Hollows. It takes several hours to run through the entire asylum, slinking around in the cold, skirting around both demons and keeping their eyes peeled for whichever Hollow had grabbed any one of their things. The last item they find is Solaire’s shield, and when they do, Oscar gives the painted sun emblem a long look Solaire can’t read through the man’s helmet.

After a moment, Oscar lets out a light chuckle; “Your name, your armor, even your shield– You really are quite fond of the sun, aren’t you?”

Solaire immediately brings up a laugh of his own as he says, “Well, aren’t we all?”

Oscar pauses, but shrugs; “There are those that prefer darkness, but I’m not one of them. I suppose I’m quite fond of the sun as well.” As Oscar walks on ahead of him, now looking for a way out of the asylum and further on to Lordran, Solaire pauses to watch his back. He allows himself a smile. He was right– Oscar is different from the knights he’s known. He’s better. 

Solaire suggests they head to the roof– there was definite risk, one of the demons stomped out its patrol up there, but it would give them the best vantage point to find their way to Lordran. Oscar agrees, if hesitantly. The light of the sun through the clouds is weak, but it still nearly blinds Oscar for a precious second as they come out onto the roof. Solaire, as always, feels no pain when the light hits his eyes and he can see the monster guarding the asylum is on the other side of the roof. It hasn’t spotted them yet. For now, they’re safe enough, and they creep across the roof to a better vantage point of the lands beyond. But as they’re nearly halfway across the roof, Oscar suddenly stops. 

Solaire looks over his shoulder and opens his mouth to ask what’s wrong,but Oscar holds up a hand; “Sssh– Do you hear that?” Solaire just stares ahead. For a second, he doesn’t hear a thing. But then… singing. A woman, singing a song with no words. It’s faint, but it’s there, coming from a hole in the roof just to Oscar’s left. Solaire creeps forward and peers down; it’s hard to see details, but he can see the Undead woman within is close to being a Hollow. But not quite there yet. She still has the presence of mind to sing, at the absolute least. Solaire looks back to Oscar, who’s still staring intently down at the cell.

“… I thought we were the only ones,” Oscar murmurs. Solaire frowns beneath his helmet, worrying his lower lip with his teeth.

He turns to Oscar; “You want to free her.”

The knight gives a loose, hapless shrug; “I don’t know, I– She has as much chance at fulfilling the prophecy as we do, doesn’t she? It– It just doesn’t _feel_ right to leave another sane person in there.”

“And how would we get her out?” Solaire asks, gesturing to the hole with his sword, “The door to her cell’s likely locked, and the door looks fairly sturdy. We can’t break it down.” Oscar looks from the hole to just past Solaire– but not back. Instead, he takes Solaire’s shoulder and turns him to look the same way. Several yards away is the massive beast watching over the asylum, the hulking thing standing with its back to them. And just close enough to the demon is a man’s corpse with a key on his belt, glinting in the pale sunlight. 

Solaire turns to Oscar again with a soft frown; “You can’t know that’s the key to her cell.”

“But there’s a _chance_ ,” the knight replied, squeezing Solaire’s shoulder. The corpse is dangerously close to the demon– there’s almost no chance the knight will be able to get the key without also getting its attention. It’s a lot to risk on a “maybe”. 

Through the slits in their helmets, Solaire meets Oscar’s eyes and simply says, “He has the key. The choice is yours.”

It doesn’t take Oscar long to make that choice. He only pauses to untie the white soapstone from around his belt and hand it to Solaire before taking off towards the corpse. Solaire watches his back for a moment, then turns and continues upon their original path. If the Gods will it, he will see Oscar again in Lordran. 

* * *

_One could never miss the approach of Gwyn’s Firstborn, as he was always preceded by the stench of blood._

_Ciaran watched from the corridor wall as the crown prince came into view. He was walking beside Ornstein, the prince speaking with enough volume and enthusiasm to more than make up for the quiet and serious nature of their captain. Where Ornstein prided himself on keeping his weapon and armor pristine and shining off the battlefield, the prince’s sword still dripped red, his boots tracked red, and the lower half of his green cape of feathers had been dyed permanently red from the blood of dragons. And for all his violence, for all he cut a swathe through the battlefield that rivaled the breadth of the four knights themselves, he still grinned that bright, boyish grin._

_The crown prince saw her– he always saw her, especially when she didn’t want to be seen– and called out to her with a wide wave. She bowed in return, staying silent. That usually assuaged him, and today was no different. He turned back to Ornstein as they passed her, and when they were definitely not out of earshot but just far enough away that the prince could argue that they were he nudged the captain with his elbow and made some lewd insinuation about her and Artorias. She frowned beneath her mask; even if it was true, it was still improper. It was unbecoming of a prince, and even more unbecoming of her captain to stifle a laugh in response to such a comment._

_Her eyes drifted along the crimson trail the prince left in his wake. Loud, juvenile, violent, irreverent. And heir to the throne._

“Gods save the kingdom,” _she murmured to herself before disappearing into the shadows._

* * *

Solaire feels a great shuddering all around as the despondent knight mocks his quest for the sun. It grows faster and faster until in the midst of the crestfallen warrior’s sentence Solaire feels something akin to a piece of parchment being torn in two; with it, the warrior is no longer sitting in front of him, and the world is quiet. At first, he simply blinks– this must be what Oscar spoke about, the phenomenon of worlds coming together then sliding apart. And then, Solaire can feel nothing but a deep, cold loneliness as he sits by the bonfire, staring at the bones and sword at its center. He hadn’t even liked the warrior– this wasn’t about that.

It was one thing, to go about his journey for the sun entirely alone from the very beginning to the very end. But to have the company of a single other person in this empty, quiet world taken away from him… That was another thing entirely. This quest is already a hazy, frightening one. It doesn’t need that pain on top of it.

He recalls, faintly, that the Heir’s Warriors of Sunlight fought not just for the God King Gwyn, but for all who needed them. They fought to ensure that no one was alone, and no one was defenseless. Solaire thinks he rather likes the sound of that, even if a piece of him scratches at his skull and tells him that it might not be true.   

He takes his time in the Undead Burgh, looking in every unlocked door and around every corner street for any sign of the sun. What he finds are Hollows– more Hollows than he could have possibly imagined. As he picks through the bones of this town, he wonders how it came to this. Living their lives should have been purpose enough to keep the townsfolk from going Hollow. But he supposes that years upon years without change, years upon years of going through the same routines and seeing the same faces day in and day out and _knowing_ nothing would change could grind anyone down to becoming Hollow. He strikes down the Hollows that charge him with sense of deep pity and a creeping sense of fear.

He doesn’t find the sun, but he does find a drake that nearly lands on top of him. As the creature flies away Solaire stares after it in wide-eyed awe and thinks that a second too early and its claws would’ve speared him. And a part of him feels almost _angry_ – to die by the claws of a _dragon_ of all things? Something about that makes his blood catch afire, makes his jaw clench and his teeth grind, and he quickly moves forward to try and outrun it. 

The bull demon is a surprise, and he’s not quite sure why. Certainly he wasn’t expecting monsters quite like this, but as he fights it he gets a nagging feeling, as if this bull is not where it should be. But trying to think of where it’s supposed to be instead nearly gets him shot by a Hollow archer, so for the rest of the fight he keeps his attention on the bull. When the bull’s dispatched, he takes out the archers for good measure.

It’s not so much the fight that tires him out as that odd, persistent feeling he had during it. Before going forwards, he takes a slight detour away from the main path and down to a semicircular outcropping. The view isn’t much to speak of, more of Lordran to the east and clouds and mist to the west, but from here he can see the sun filtering through the clouds. He can almost see the sun itself, and he stares up at it as he always does. Lordran is a strange, sad place, sadder still when he’s alone. But the sun is there, shining above constant and bright. At least that won’t change.

Solaire hears footsteps coming down the stairs; they’re not the large plodding stomps of one of the demons or the shuffling stumbles of a Hollow. In fact, they sound almost delicate, a gentle tapping against the stone. From the corner of his eye, he looks to the stairs.

The woman walking towards him is dressed in armor suiting a brigand and holding a battle axe and shield, but she doesn’t look like a warrior. In fact, she rather looks like someone’s favorite aunt. She’s short and stout, with a round face and prominent but pert nose. Her her brown hair and olive skin are slicked down by sweat and grease, and her dark brown eyes are ringed with heavy shadows. Her face is smudged with dirt, soot and blood, and she’s panting like a hound.

Her eyes finally drift up from her feet and she sees him. The small woman freezes a yard away and instinctively tenses up, bringing up her shield just that little bit and clumsily flipping her axe so the blade is pointed his way. Solaire waits and watches her eyes shiver, then start moving ever so slightly up and down– the wheels are turning, and she’s slowly realizing that if he were Hollow, likely he would have attacked her by now.

She opens her mouth, and despite the woman herself looking to be somewhere in her thirties, her youthful voice is high and clear like the chime of a small bell; “H-hello, Sir…?”

He smiles beneath his helmet and turns to face her; “Ah, hello! You don’t look Hollow… Far from it!”

The woman’s smile comes easily, and her face immediately flushes as she chirps, “No, thank goodness.” Her accent is very quaint, like those he’d heard on farmers in Northern Astora when wandering. But it has a musical roll that marks it as foreign.

He nods with his shoulders; “I am Solaire of Astora, an adherent of the Lord of Sunlight. And you are?”

She bows from the waist; “Elizabeth of Catarina. It’s a relief to see a friendly face after fighting all these beasts.”

“Ah, so you encountered that bull demon as well,” Solaire remarks, turning slightly to the bridge, “I thought I’d dispatched it.” He did. But _she_ didn’t. He thinks this, and for the briefest moment believes he knows what it means; but the second he draws close the meaning draws away from him.

The woman’s soft voice brings him back; “Perhaps it revives with the bonfires as we do?” Suddenly her mouth snaps shut and her face flushes an even deeper red.

When her mouth opens again words flow out like a creek, “I-I apologize, I shouldn’t assume you’re Undead just because you’re here–“

For the first time in far too long, his laughter isn’t a shield as he chuckles, “It’s quite alright, friend. I also carry the Darksign.” Her smile is tinged with sympathy, but her whole body relaxes, and relief briefly glitters through her eyes.

He nods and continues, “Now that I am Undead, I have come to this great land, the birthplace of Lord Gwyn, to seek my very own sun.” What he says doesn’t quite register with Elizabeth at first– she just nods with that same sympathetic smile. But recognition passes over her face and the smile falls, an eyebrow arching ever so slightly to replace it. Her mouth is a very tight, very deliberate line. 

Solaire’s voice wavers and he expertly turns it into a light laugh, “Do you find that strange? Well, you should! No need to hide your reaction. I get that look all the time.”

Elizabeth’s cheeks find a way to get even darker as she hurriedly looks away. Solaire lets his own eyes drift back towards the sun with another deflecting laugh. He stares up, unblinking, and waits for what feels like ages to hear her footsteps hurriedly tap their way back up the stairs and away from him. They don’t. He uses the shade of his helmet to stealthily look back at her from the corner of his eye. Elizabeth is looking at him again, eyebrow still raised, but smiling again. She almost looks as if she’s studying him, the way her eyes drift up and down his armor.

He turns to her in full once more, smiling in earnest beneath his helmet; “Oh, ah-hah! So I didn’t scare you?”

She shakes her head; “No, Sir. There are far more unsettling things in this land than you.” Once again he laughs, and once again it’s full and true– at once it feels pleasant and a slight bit frightening.

“Well then, I have a proposition, if you have a moment.”

“Certainly.” 

Her eyes met his for the first time; he’d heard his own eyes called sky blue. If his were the sky, hers were the earth, gentle, grounded and stable. “The way I see it, our fates appear to be intertwined. We are both Undead but still sane, both heading the same way in this land brimming with Hollows. Could that really be mere chance? I hardly think so.” 

Elizabeth cocks her head to the side, eyes drifting towards the stone as she muses, “Perhaps you’re right.”

“So– what do you say?” Solaire asks, “Why not help one another on this lonely journey?”

Her whole face lights up and a deep relief washes into her eyes; “A-absolutely– I mean, yes, of course. I-I wanted to ask, but… Yes.”

He smiles in perfect tune with her; “This pleases me greatly! Well then, take this.” Solaire unties Oscar’s soapstone from his belt and holds it out for Elizabeth. The woman takes it in surprisingly dainty hands and furrows her brow as she inspects it.

“We are amidst strange beings in a strange land,” Solaire begins, “The flow of time itself is convoluted, with heroes centuries old phasing in and out. The very fabric waves, and relations shift and obscure. There’s no telling how much longer your world and mine will remain in contact.” He sees Elizabeth’s shoulders droop ever so slightly.

“But,” Solaire continues in a deliberately lighter tone, “Use this, to summon one another as spirits, cross the gaps between the worlds, and engage in jolly co-operation! Of course, we are not the only ones engaged in this. But I am a warrior of the sun! Spot my summon signature easily by its brilliant aura. If you miss it, you must be blind!” Despite all he’d been told by Madame Faustine about how laughing at your own joke was boorish, Solaire can’t help but let out a hearty chuckle at his own jest. Thankfully, Elizabeth simply smiles in turn as she carefully tucks the soapstone away into a pouch on her belt. 

The Undead woman nods once before looking up again and asking, “Shall we continue on together?” Solaire pauses; he remembers Firelink Shrine, the intense feeling of loneliness as his world separated from that of the crestfallen warrior. How much _worse_ it would feel, walking alongside this sweet-faced and friendly woman, only to feel their worlds shudder apart mid-step.

So he inclines his head and instead replies, “Forgive me, but I will stay behind, to gaze at the sun,” he lets his eyes drift back up to the glowing disc at the sky’s center, words drifting into his own musings, “The sun is a wondrous body. Like a magnificent father… If only _I_ could be so grossly incandescent…”

He almost drifts into thoughts of the sun again, but Elizabeth’s downcast voice softly brings him back; “Oh… Well, I sincerely hope we’ll meet in person again.”

Solaire spares her one last smile over his shoulder; “I’m all but certain we will, Elizabeth.” That brought the smile back to her face, and she quickly leaves, just in time for her to be out of sight as Solaire feels the first twinges of the worlds slipping apart. It’s different from at the shrine– not a quick and violent process, but rather more like two objects pressed tight together sliding against each other until finally they’ve no choice but to come free of each other. Then, there’s that same deep tearing sensation, and Solaire feels that deep empty pit open up in his chest once again.

* * *

_Gwynevere hadn’t moved for a long time. She’d been staring out at the horizon through the tall palace windows, eyes still red but with no more tears to spare. Mother was gone, and she wasn’t coming back. Accepting that didn’t make it any easier. The hole in their lives was still there, empty, never to be filled again. The ache ran deep. She wondered if it would ever go away–_

_Her musings were interrupted by a wet nose being pushed right in her face._

_For a moment, Gwynevere could only blink. She tried to see around the huge wet nose filling her field of vision; there was gray fur, uncommonly sharp teeth, and a lolling pink tongue._

_Slowly, she named the intruder;_ “Sif?”

 _And then, she heard her older brother’s voice pushed into a high pitch from behind the wolf puppy in her face;_ “Yes, 'tis I, Sif! Being the pet of the bravest knight in the realm, I knew 'twas my duty to lift the princess' spirits!”

_Right on cue, Sif started licking her face. Gwynevere’s sunny smile broke through and she couldn’t help giggling as she weakly tried to push Sif away. From the corners of her eyes she could see her brother set Sif down in her lap, and the enthusiastic puppy just propped himself up with his paws and kept on like nothing had happened. Gwynevere relented, scratching Sif behind the ears and putting a steadying hand on the wolf puppy’s back._

_The crown prince nodded, settling down cross-legged in front of her;_ “Feeling better, Sister?”

 _Sif finally sat down, and Gwynevere smiled at her brother;_ “Somewhat. Does Artorias know thou borrow'dst his wolf?”

 _He grinned, reached over and ruffled her auburn hair;_ “Never thou mindst about that.”

_Many compared Gwynevere’s own soft and demure smile to the sun, but when her brother grinned, she knew he was the right choice for the throne– in that smile was all the warmth and strength of sunlight. He needed time to learn and to grow, she wouldn’t deny that. But deep inside she knew he was the kind and just ruler the Gods and the humans both deserved._

* * *

Solaire almost regrets not going on by Elizabeth’s side; not particularly because the loneliness is unbearable, but more because as much as it shamed him he was certain he’d die if he took on that drake alone. That strange anger bubbled up as he looked over his shoulder at the creature– look at it, perched at the end of the path like it owned the place. The god king had killed all of the dragons, and a drake was nothing but a pale, beastly imitation of a dragon. But much as he insulted it, the creature had nearly roasted him alive with its fire twice now. It was downright embarrassing to be at that thing’s mercy. He hates it, but he’s going to have to try and get around it. 

And just then, his opportunity comes. The drake pushes off the stone building and lands on the bridge. 

Solaire sprints past the drake as fast as his legs can carry him, diving into the building and rolling into the corner out of sight. He slides down into a sitting position, leaning against the wall and catching his breath. That was far too close. As his heart rate slows down and he can breathe through his nose again, Solaire’s eyes run along the floor and spy a bonfire– already he lets out a reflexive sigh of relief at the sight. He gets to his feet and after a quick glance to see if the drake is well and truly gone, Solaire walks across the room to the bonfire. As he lights it, he catches sight of the statue looming above him and looks up…

He forgets to breathe.

The woman immortalized in stone is beautiful, but that isn’t all she is. She’s achingly familiar, and though he can’t grasp how Solaire _knows_ her– he knows every fold of fabric in her robes, her posture as she stands with her weight on one leg, her smooth and serene face caught forever in marble. He knows the child in her arms even better than he knows the woman. He stares at the straight sword the child holds and nearly loses his grip on his own. Even though the woman is so torturously familiar that he can imagine her auburn hair and the comfort and safety the child must feel in her arms, when he reaches out to grasp just _where_ he knows this woman from it shies away from his grasp every time. 

It’s only then that Solaire realizes he’s crying, and for the life of him he can’t figure out why.

Solaire shakes his head to try and get his bearings, and in the process sees a small doorway to his right leading back outside. He follows the light of the sun falling through the portal, coming up the steps and onto another alcove. This ledge is covered in vegetation– it’s a place long abandoned, since before the townspeople fell to the Curse. At the alcove’s head, a massive statue would have stood. But now its pieces are scattered about the alcove, some lost and many damaged beyond recognizability; only the statue’s sandaled feet remain.

The ache in his chest grows, and for reasons he can’t describe a profound sense of shame crawls up to sit beside the sorrow in his heart. He can almost see what this statue once was, but as if through a deep, dense fog.

In reality, he sees a glint at the statue’s feet, and bends down to investigate. Sitting at the statue’s base is a brassy golden medal with an insignia of the sun emblazoned upon it. The sun is almost identical to the ones he painted on his shield and his armor. Solaire’s brows furrow in thought– has he seen this medal before? The medallion’s warmth and weight feel so _right_ in his hands that he supposes he _must_ have seen it once before. But where? He’d never seen them in Astora, nor on his journey to the city. He shakes his head before he can finish his next thought– It’s impossible that he came from Lordran. He was a human, and Lordran was the land of the Gods. He _absolutely_ would have remembered being in the birthplace of the great Gods.

Solaire doesn’t know what to think.

So he doesn’t.

He stands, places the sunlight medal in a pouch on his belt, and continues on towards the sun.


	3. Afternoon

The soapstones are invaluable tools– they help the Undead cross space and time at will, letting them all assist each other in battle. But Solaire discovers their one glaring flaw when Elizabeth summons him.

Elizabeth is smiling wide through the orange tint being summoned gives the world, and Solaire hears her greet him as if she’s at the bottom of a lake. He can make out his name, and that’s about it. He suspects she hears him in much the same way when he tries to explain what’s going on and her brilliant smile slowly falls, brows drawing together in mounting confusion. She opens her mouth to speak, closes it, opens it again, then shrugs and points at her ear while shaking her head.

They can’t communicate verbally. Solaire grits his teeth, but nods with a stubborn smile– He only said co-operation would be jolly, not that it would be _easy_. They’ll just have to figure something else out.

Solaire makes sure to keep Elizabeth constantly in view as they fight the gargoyles and despite her glaring inexperience in battle he resists the urge to shout specific instructions (at one point he gets more worried that she’ll overextend herself and fall off the roof than anything else). She does much the same, moving counter to him like a magnet with an opposite polarity and keeping her requests for help as nonverbal as possible– though he _does_ hear her frantically scream a garbled noise very similar to his name every now and again.

He perhaps takes more blows for her than he should– His mind knows she could take one or two and that he needs to stay alive to help her, but his body lurches between her and the beasts before his mind can catch up. Necessity demands they find a rhythm, and though it is a _very_ near thing, every single creature eventually falls to his sword and her axe. Everything begins to wobble and waver as soon as they do, but Solaire doesn’t return to his own world before he catches sight of Elizabeth turning to him with a breathless grin and hears her triumphantly call out to him.

Her smile is infectious, and he gives her a wide wave to send her off. He returns to his own world just in time to hear the faint echo of a bell, ringing out across the worlds for all Undead. 

He smiles, wide and proud, and keeps smiling for at least an hour.

When she summons him next, it’s to fight the grotesque dragon of the Depths, and he’s not the only one. The golden knight Lautrec is there at Elizabeth’s side when Solaire arrives in her world, glowing white and glaring at him. Even without seeing his face Solaire knows he’s glaring– he’s developed a keen sense for when people aren’t happy to see him. But the sheer joy on Elizabeth’s face is enough to overpower it, and the two of them head into the fight with matching grins.

It’s an even nearer thing, but Elizabeth’s armor and weaponry aren’t the only things she’s improved. She’s not yet graceful (and with weaponry as heavy as her axe and shield he supposes she never quite will be) but she at least knows how to strike and how to be struck, and can watch him while also watching the beast. Lautrec is very little help– Solaire’s not sure what he thinks his parrying dagger will do to a creature that doesn’t wield a weapon, but he can’t help but be impressed by how doggedly he keeps trying.

And still Solaire finds himself between his companions and the beast; if these blows would kill them he’s not sure why he feels he’d fare any better, but he leaps to their defense over and over again, and knows he would do it every single time. Their victory is a hard-won miracle, and this time Elizabeth gets to wave back to him before he returns to his own world.

He continues his own trek downwards, undaunted in his search for the sun.

A bell tolls. Solaire smiles.

* * *

_It wasn’t long after their brother’s banishment that Gwynevere left._

_Gwyndolin wanted to tell her that it was pointless– no matter how far she and Flann ran, the sun would go out above their heads if they didn’t do anything. The humans needed Shepherds to lead them to the First Flame, and who better to act as those Shepherds than their Gods? But Gwyndolin didn’t tell her this. They’d already argued the point for weeks, even enlisting the help of the great serpent to strengthen their case. They’d argued until their throat was sore, but Gwynevere had stood her ground. She was always stubborn at the least convenient times._

_When Gwynevere left, Gwyndolin had simply bowed politely and wished her a safe journey._ _Gwynevere had replied with a bow and well-wishes of her own. Flann had given Gwyndolin the barest of nods before leaving ahead of his wife._

_But Gwynevere had stopped at the foot of the palace steps. For a moment, she stood there, and Gwyndolin could imagine as they stared at her back their sister anxiously fiddling with her hands as she pondered what she wanted to say._

_Gwynevere’s arms stilled, and she turned around to face Gwyndolin with uncommon steel in her eyes;_ “Gwynedd is right.”

 _Gwyndolin channeled every ounce of willpower they had into staying still and impassive, but their serpents hissed and writhed on the stone;_ “What?”

“Father’s actions were desperate and cowardly. There is another way– there _must_ be,” _the princess continued, jaw set but fingers trembling as she quoted their sibling like his words had come from a holy miracle and she was a devoted cleric._ “Gwynedd went too far, yet his words did ring true. I pray, for thine own sake, that he finds his way home before it’s too late.”

 _Gwynevere curtsied low and quick;_ “Farewell, Gwyndolin. Praise the Sun.”

_The princess turned to follow her husband, and Gwyndolin watched her leave, teeth grinding. Nobody dared speak that aging platitude anymore, not with the sun’s light waning every day. But that hadn’t been why Gwynevere had said it. No, she’d said it because no one had been more fond of those three awful words than the Crown Prince. The Dark Sun could hear it in his wild and piercing voice, ringing out and echoing off every surface in the dying city._

_Even when his entire identity had been erased the perfect golden Heir of Sunlight was still there, digging his heels into everyone’s hearts and leaving no room for even the smallest sliver of moonlight._

_Every statue of him had already been destroyed. Gwyndolin filled the gaps in their illusion with statues of the executioner. Worse than being erased was being replaced._

* * *

Anor Londo feels larger than he expected. He certainly expected a gigantic, glimmering city built for the standards of the great and powerful Gods, but he didn’t expect it to _feel_ this large. It feels less awe-inspiring and humbling, more… uncomfortable and awkward. Like wearing a pair of shoes a size too big. Solaire has to correct himself every time he tries to walk up the sets of stairs built for the stride of the divine– walking with his normal stride ends up in him hitting the stair with his foot, tripping and landing on his face. He wonders why he doesn’t just use the stairs made for mortals, and vows that next time, he’ll take that path. 

He never does. 

The knight walks the winding streets of the city, weaves between flying buttresses and soaring arcades and wishes beyond wishing that he could have come to this city just a little bit sooner. The setting sun glimmers and glints off anything that will reflect it, its light painting the white marble a warm and comforting orange and turning any unbroken windows into planes of pure fire. But the emptiness of the city robs the architecture of its beauty. 

The grand capital of the Gods is frozen in pristine, immaculate order– almost as if the people had disappeared all at once instead of gradually running away. Solaire looks around and he can almost hear the sounds of hundreds of thousands of footsteps on the stone, of the harmonious cacophony of hundreds of thousands of voices, and his heart aches for the hustle and bustle of life being lived that would turn this stagnant sculpture into the wondrous musical instrument that is a city.

The sounds of the monsters and armored sentinels are lost in the vastness of a settlement made for much grander noise, somehow becoming quiet in the wide open expanse. The Firekeeper refuses to speak to him, just tending to her bonfire in a stiff, severe silence with only a single prolonged glare when he first arrived as proof that she even knew he was there. 

And strangest of all, despite the blazing sun setting in the sky, the whole place feels… cold.

Solaire pushes himself steadily forward with as little pause as he can muster (despite how the statues of the rotund man with the hammer make his whole being bristle with a directionless, indignant frustration) until he finds the second bonfire, where he lets himself pause for perhaps too long. 

He can’t take his eyes away from the weak flames as his mind runs in useless circles, trying to make sense of his baseless feelings and failing miserably. Every time he thinks he’s close to finding his reasons he runs into a thick bank of fog, gets turned around, and runs back out moving back the way he came. He’s treading water in the middle of his great lake, with the shore only a distant memory, and his sun nowhere to be found.

Solaire squeezes his eyes shut and murmurs, “What is _wrong_ with me…?”

In the deafening silence, Solaire picks out a familiar set of dainty footsteps drawing near and lets out a deep, grateful sigh. 

Elizabeth steps through the door and nearly jumps upon seeing him, just barely managing not to drop the object in her hands; it’s too small to be her weapon and appears to be made entirely from wood, making it a very poor substitute for the sturdy hammer he’d last seen her with at Firelink Shrine. Her eyes glitter with relief as her smile spreads from one ear to the other.

“Solaire,” she chirps, trotting over to sit beside him at the fire, “I’m so glad to see you!”

He laughs, something that’s become instinct upon hearing her voice; “And I you– You’ve been awfully quiet these days. Smooth summoning out there?”

She laughs in kind as she sets the object– Solaire can now see it’s some sort of oddly-shaped lute with five strings– down on the floor between them; “I wouldn’t call it _smooth_ , per se– You’ve been through Sen’s Fortress, you know what I mean.”

He shudders at the memory of the swinging blades and rolling rocks; “Oh yes, I do. It can be harrowing out there– Do not hesitate to call upon me.”

Elizabeth’s smile leaves her eyes as she pushes some hair behind her ear; “I won’t, I promise.”

Solaire reaches out and places a hand firmly on her shoulder; “I mean it. You’ve left me with quite an impression; I would relish a chance to assist you.”

Elizabeth’s smile falls but her cheeks darken and her eyes glitter with wonder as they meet his through the slit in his helmet; “Really?”

He supposes she can see his smile in his eyes at this point; “Absolutely– You’ve improved by leaps and bounds. We’ll make a fine warrior out of you yet.”

Elizabeth’s fingers ghost over the strings of her odd lute; “I don’t know if I can ever consider myself a warrior, but… I’m proud that I can look after myself.”

Conversation with Elizabeth always flows easily when they find each other at Firelink Shrine and it’s no different here; he tells her of how he encountered the odd but pleasant Domnhall in the depths (in her other time, her other place, she found him as well; they both lament over his inconvenient and dangerous location at the Shrine), she tells him the solemn tale of how she had trusted Lautrec and he had rewarded her trust by killing the Firekeeper and absconding to Anor Londo with her soul (Solaire pointedly does not mention how in his other time, his other place, he had already killed the golden knight). The sun never truly sets in Anor Londo, but Solaire supposes they’ve been speaking for an hour at the least without a pause to be found.

The words leave Solaire’s mouth before he can think them through; “You really _are_ fond of chatting with me, aren’t you? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had feelings for me.”

Elizabeth’s eyes shoot open wide and Solaire’s mouth snaps shut. Both of their faces turn red– _Oh Gods_. Where had _that_ come from?! Elizabeth was a pretty woman, but Solaire had lived among pretty women for months and kept any impulses to flirt with them under strict control, because he knew _this_ would happen. This search for the Sun really _was_ making him lose his mind… if he hadn’t lost it already.

“Oh, no, dear me,” he babbled, frantically waving his comment off, “Pretend you didn’t hear that!” His old nervous laugh bubbles up and out as he realizes this is not going to work. Elizabeth’s eyes are locked on the floor as her face turns darker and darker. He clears his throat and she picks her odd lute up and starts tuning it, nimble fingers working at a lightning pace without even looking at the pegs. 

Thank the Gods, she’s given him an out; “W-what sort of instrument is that, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Elizabeth finally looks at him, smile returning despite her face’s deep red color; “Oh! This! This is a vihuela! They’re not so common outside of Catarina so imagine _my_ shock when I found one _here_ of all places! Some Catarinan bards probably brought it here to play for the Gods, though what bard worth their salt would leave their instrument behind is _beyond_ me–“

Solaire cocks his head to the side; “Can you play it?”

Elizabeth catches herself and slows down; “Yes, and I can sing. I used to be a bard myself, before I had to leave for the asylum.”

Solaire blinks away his surprise. This is the first she’d spoken of her life before. What a life it must have been, traveling as a bard from town to town entertaining the people. He wonders if it was anywhere near as lonely as his time before he reached the Crag, but doesn’t find it in himself to ask.

Elizabeth grins with almost a coquettish tilt of the head; “Any requests?”

Solaire smiles; “Hm… Something that makes _you_ happy to sing.”

Her laughter makes him want to say something embarrassing all over again; she starts to play, and when she starts to sing all urge to speak dries up, because now all he wants to do is listen to her. With more strings, the melody is more rich and complex than anything Solaire had heard on a solitary lute, and though the language is not one Solaire recognizes the cadence and rhythm of the words strike him as familiar. And it isn’t vague, like the near-memories he feels scratch at the bottom of his mind and plague him with feelings of nostalgia and nausea– he almost remembers this like he almost remembers the names of women who worked at the Crag for a week or two before leaving for greener pastures.

He closes his eyes, and not for the first time he wonders exactly how removed he and Elizabeth are in time. He hopes it’s not far. He hopes that not only has he heard this song, but he’s heard her clear voice sing it to him. Because if there is even a chance they crossed paths in the world outside of Lordran, if there is even a chance that she was one of many minstrels he passed on the street without a thought, there’s a chance that she can be more real to him than just passing encounters near bonfires and summonings that are few and far between.

For a moment, he remembers Oscar, and he’s not sure why.

Elizabeth’s fingers trip on the strings and come to a sharp halt. Solaire opens his eyes to see Elizabeth’s own fixed on the fire, uncomfortably wide, as her whole body shakes. Solaire sits up straight. Something is wrong.

“Elizabeth?”

Her voice comes out in a stumbling, choked whisper; “I can’t… I-I can’t remember what comes next…”

She rakes a hand through her hair as her voice rises in volume and pitch; “I-I don’t understand I know this song I _know_ this song I’ve sung it s-so many times b-but I just _can’t_ –“ Tears start collecting in the corners of her eyes, slowly filling them and threatening to spill over.

It was a stark image. No one was safe from Hollowing. Not even someone as bright as her.

And yet, just as he leaps between her and the beasts of Lordran, Solaire finds himself opening his mouth.

Solaire can’t remember the words, doesn’t _know_ the words, but he remembers the tune. His voice shudders and staggers and spins as he tries to sing the notes in the next few bars and desperately keeps his eyes from meeting hers. 

Elizabeth stares at him, jaw slack. From the corner of his eye, he sees her mouth slowly close… then spread out into a smile.

Tears blaze dark trails down her cheeks and she sings on, more confident and clear than before. Her fingers dance along the strings, light and graceful. There is something bright and beautiful in them that Solaire can’t, _won’t_ describe, because naming it will break them both.

Their worlds pull apart mid-note but Solaire can still hear her. He keeps hearing her long after he leaves.

* * *

 _“_ In earnest, _” Ornstein growled as he carried the prince through the now quiet battlefield, “_ Thou art a fool. _”_

 _The prince grins; “_ And thou loveth me for it. _”_

 _“_ No, _” Ornstein grunted, roughly adjusting how the prince lay on his shoulders and grimacing at the sight of his blood against his glittering golden armor, “_ I do _not._ Thou doth not need to jump in front of thy Warriors every _single_ time a dragon gets too close– _“_

 _“_ They won’t survive, _” the prince snapped around a bloody cough, “_ They are human. I am a God– I can survive. _”_

 _“_ Is _this_ what thou callst _‘surviving’?!” Ornstein shot back, “_ Spewing blood?! Needing to be CARRIED to the back lines?! By thine Father’s light, I gage thine death will be upon my shoulders. _”_

 _“_ That would be a fine place to die, _” the prince mumbled. Ornstein’s sigh was long and heavy, and it just made the prince smile even wider._

 _Over the hill came a chorus of_ Crown Prince! _s drowned out by Gwynevere’s high and shrill call of her brother’s name as she came rushing to meet them, the crown prince’s Warriors of Sunlight following on her heels like a gaggle of ducklings. Straggling behind them was Gwyndolin, silent and solemn as a ghost as they glided on their serpent feet at the rear._

 _“_ What werest thou thinking?! _” Gwynevere sobbed as she desperately cast Soothing Sunlight and tried to wipe away her tears at once._

 _Ornstein lay the prince down on the ground; as he did so the captain of the Warriors of Sunlight ran to his side, babbling,_ “My Lord I apologize, we are your guard, you should never be hurt in our stead–“

 _The prince waved him off; “_ Fie! Thou understandst not– For thee, fighting at my side is thy glory. But thy death at my side is my shame. _”_

 _The captain’s brow furrowed, but he pursed his lips and simply murmured,_ “I see. Forgive me.”

 _The prince grinned, looking past everyone to rest his eyes on Gwyndolin;_ “Dost the sight of blood disturb thee, Dark Sun? Thou art as pale as freshly driven snow!”

_Gwynevere let out a choked sputter of a laugh. Some of the Warriors of Sunlight tittered like gossiping handmaidens. Ornstein couldn’t help but cough out a chuckle, as was his way when the prince made some awful jest. But most impressive of all was a single corner of Gwyndolin’s mouth twitching ever so slightly up._

_The prince winked at Ornstein;_ “I shall get a laugh ere long– stake my life on it.”

 _Ornstein let a fond smile stretch across his face as he shook his head;_ “Then thy death truly shall be upon my shoulders.”

* * *

Solaire’s heart aches with every blow he lands on Ornstein, but he can’t keep from smiling whenever he attacks Smough. To fight Ornstein feels like betrayal, but to fight Smough feels like justice, and for every statue of Smough he’s seen he hits the executioner harder. For all it makes the fight even more difficult, Solaire can’t help but be glad that Ornstein absorbs the executioner, since Solaire can’t guarantee he would stop hitting the corpse if it didn’t disappear. But that leaves him face to face with Ornstein, and the cracks in his heart grow deeper with every blow he lands. The empty pit in his chest grows deep and dark as he holds the Leo ring and considers putting it in his pouch, or even on his finger…

Solaire leaves it where it fell. It doesn’t belong to him.

Elizabeth’s phantom disappears with a hearty wave and he desperately wishes that she wouldn’t, because what comes next is a mystery, yet he doesn’t want to face it alone. He approaches the great doors and it takes him several minutes to even touch them. He doesn’t fear further danger, or even the unknown. He fears exactly what could be behind this door– an empty room.

Solaire grits his teeth, takes a deep breath in, holds it, and lets it go.

He opens the door.

For the second time since he arrived in the land of the Gods, tears roll down his face. 

Gwynevere is as great and radiant as the tapestries and miracles proclaimed her to be, the picture of beauty, grace, and royal splendor as she lies resplendent and calm in the sunlight filtering through the gossamer drapes. He can see fire in the light hitting her auburn hair and yearns to touch it, to ruffle it as he would Iris' hair when she finally warmed to him. There is warmth in the princess' smile and her soft, lilting voice as she tells him of the Lordvessel and taking the throne of Gwyn and all other sorts of weighty matters.

But, truly, all Solaire can think as she speaks to him is two simple words: _You’re here_. 

She is here, wonderful and real and no matter how pieces of his mind wriggle and writhe at how she speaks and the fact that she’s even here at all (it’s _wrong_ , everything is _wrong_ ) his heart simply sings for the mere and simple fact that she’s _here_ and he can _see_ her. 

He tries to take the Lordvessel from her, tries to leave her chamber and set about the quest she has tasked him with, but all he can do is sit there on his useless knees and stare up at her while desperately trying to keep her from hearing his sobbing. It doesn’t work, as her expression finally changes to one he cannot read. It’s trapped between pity, affection, and guilt. The goddess moves slightly, extending one of her monumental hands towards him, but just as she’s about to touch him she pulls it back.

Instead, she simply sighs, “Do not weep, Sweet Undead. Thine path hast been one of great struggle, and no doubt great sorrow, but know now that thou dost not walk it alone. As long as you seek to link the fire, I am with thee… Always.”

And those words simply make him weep that much harder.

Solaire isn’t sure how he ended up at the third bonfire, only that he eventually got there as his tears started to dry and he started to breathe normally again. He stares into the fire with his back to the statue of Gwyn that stands at the bonfire’s side, unblinking and unthinking. For the time being he simply focuses on learning how to breathe again. It takes him hours to dredge up even a single thought, and the first one he finds isn’t pleasant.

He hadn’t found his sun.

Despite ringing the bells above in the Burg and below in Blighttown, despite fighting through the fortress to make it all the way to Anor Londo, despite hearing a song from the wonderful friend he had made, despite fighting tooth and nail against the executioner and dragonslayer, despite breaking down in tears in front of the Princess of Sunlight… He still had not found his own sun. There wasn’t even a trace of it. Or perhaps there had been, and he’d gotten so caught up in almost but not quite recognizing people, places, and things that he’d forgotten to look. Solaire held his helmeted head in his hands with a long groan; would he have to go back through Anor Londo and look all over again?! He had barely made it _this_ far– to go _back_ would be a nightmare.

Solaire stares into the fire, and finally asks himself in a murmur, “… Am I ever going to find it?”

“What is it that thou seekst?” Solaire’s hand is on the grip of his sword as he whirls towards the statue of Gwyn.

His grip falters as he truly sees who stands beside it– a young woman, petite and slender in an elegant, white, floor-length gown with a conspicuously long train. A golden headdress in the shape of the sun covers her eyes. Her skin and hair match her dress, pale as moonlight. And though she stands with her back straight, hands folded properly in front of her, mouth pressed into a tight and tidy line, Solaire can’t help but think she looks… sad. Sad, and deeply, painfully familiar. But where from, he doesn’t know. If she’s a goddess, she’s no goddess he’s ever seen painted or sculpted, and yet he _knows_ her. He tries to remember the pantheon, the descriptions of the Gods–

Something like a smile creeps onto her face as she remarks in her surprisingly deep voice, “When someone asks thee a question, 'tis proper to answer. I will ask once more, Sir Knight– What is it that thou seekst?”

Solaire answers her with an ease that surprises even him; “I seek a sun of my own, my lady.”

She tilts her head to the side, but even an almost coquettish gesture on this young woman he can’t help but see as draped in melancholy; “And should thee findst thy sun– What willst thou do with it?” His eyes drift to the floor as he searches for the answer. And a part of him knows this girl wouldn’t believe any lie he told, so he can’t lie to himself, either.

Solaire looks up and says simply, “I don’t know.”

The pale woman’s smile almost reaches her hidden eyes, and she murmurs, “I never thought I wouldst say this to thee… But I hopest thou findst what thou seekst.” 

His brows furrow and he’s about to ask her what she means, but she shimmers and fades out of his vision. At the same time, the statue of Gwyn shimmers, shudders, and falls away, revealing a long corridor filled only with pillars and light streaming in from high windows. Solaire pauses for the barest of moments, but creeps forward all the same and makes his slow, deliberate way down the stairs into the hall ahead. 

He walks in near perfect silence, his footsteps bouncing off the many pillars lining the hall and the towering ceilings. The solemn weight on his shoulders grows heavier with every step– he doesn’t know what he’ll find, only that he doesn’t want to see it. But he has to get there.

At the end of the hall there is a set of stairs. From the top of the stairs Solaire looks out at the giant, ornate coffin against the far wall and his breath catches in his throat. He holds that breath until his lungs start to burn, because a piece of him wants nothing more than to turn around and leave. But he _has_ to walk forward– he _needs_ to make this final trek. 

Putting one foot in front of the other, taking these stairs down into this burial chamber, he feels as if he’s wading into brackish water until he’s submerged. He walks until he stands in front of the coffin; there’s a well-worn chair nearby, slightly too large for a human, and a fresh bundle of blue flowers on the coffin. But next to the flowers is something infinitely more interesting– a small stack of paper.

He knows he shouldn’t, but he picks up the papers anyway. Solaire’s eyes run over the pages over and over again– the text is faded, but he can make out that this is one of the few surviving miracles of Gwyn’s Firstborn, telling of how the war god covered his blade in holy lightning and used it to smite the dragons. The knight’s eyes shift from the paper to the casket’s lid. 

And then his mouth opens, and before he’s even realized it, he murmurs, “It’s still here.”

For a moment, all Solaire can do is just stare ahead. His mind is blank. 

Then, his thoughts burst through the dam of his shock and come flooding in a crazed, panicked torrent. _Still here?_ How did he know it was there in the first place? He’s never seen this place, never seen this miracle. Or has he? The words feel familiar and his heart aches, all of him _aches_ and it’s deep and raw but still so empty. This isn’t simple deja vu, it can’t be, because he _knows_ once upon a time he was _right here_ with this miracle in his hands but how long ago? Who _was_ the man who stood where he’s standing right now? 

He is deep in the lake of his mind, _so close_ to the glinting pearl of answers at the bottom. But he can’t breathe. He’s drowning. And the sun shines, bright and clear even this far down in the water.

With a regretful gasp, Solaire turns his head up towards the water’s surface and chases the sun instead.


	4. Dusk

_The miracle was gone._

_Gwyndolin let their hand rest on the lid of the coffin; he had come back here. Just as he promised he would._

_The Dark Sun sat gently in their usual seat, eyes not moving from the spot where the Sunlight Blade miracle had sat. Somehow, the tomb felt more full than it had in years. Their serpents rested still and content on the cool marble floor._

_After a moment more of silence, Gwyndolin spoke;_ “Thou wouldst scarcely recognize him. He has changed so much. He’s… gentler. And in ways he has become wiser.”

 _Gwyndolin laughed,_ “He was even nervous speaking to a _woman._ I almost thought I had made a mistake when I happened upon that scene. The _Crown Prince_ stammering and stumbling like a hapless youth at the sight of a lovely maiden– Artorias and Ornstein would call me mad for suggesting such a thing.”

 _Gwyndolin sighed, laugh fading but smile remaining;_ “But even without memory or knowledge of his Godhood… He is still my brother, and thy son.”

 _Their eyes drifted to the window, watching dust motes float around in the illusory sunbeams;_ “Was that thine wish? That he would leave, gain wisdom, and return to become a true king? Didst thou know this is who he could be? Did you see what we could not?”

 _Gwyndolin pursed their lips in thought before shaking their head;_ “No, I suppose not– What we Gods have in strength we always lack in foresight, and thou art no different. Whatever the case may be…”

 _Tears slid down from behind the Dark Sun’s golden helm;_ “I am glad he is home.” 

* * *

In other times, other places, staring at the sun brought Solaire comfort.

Now, he can only think to himself that despite its light, the Undead Burg is so very cold.

He’s back at the Sunlight Altar– he finds himself drifting back here more often than Firelink Shrine, it seems. Even when he meant to take a straight path back to the shrine he would stop paying attention and find himself standing at the broken feet of the altar once again; he would even talk himself out of using the Lordvessel just so he could wander back here. Just one more thing he can’t explain, one more thing he just _barely_ can’t understand. The one thing he knew for certain was that this ledge had a breathtaking view of the sun, but he’s starting to doubt even that. The more he sees of Lordran the more _wrong_ it all feels, the more wrong _he_ feels, like a map erasing itself as he follows its paths.

He can’t help the sinking feeling in his stomach. If he was doubting _the_ sun, the one that had shone doggedly through his journey even with the fading flame sapping it of light, then what did that mean for _his_ sun?

Footsteps. Light and careful and just a bit halting. Wonderfully familiar. The tension drains from his shoulders and a smile crosses his face without a thought. 

Solaire turns to look Elizabeth in the eye and as always she seems shocked that he noticed her at all. She’s carrying a heavier shield and what looks like a distinctively weathered dragon’s tooth (something that briefly turns his smile to a smirk) and has a new scar across the bridge of her nose (something that makes his smirk come crashing down), but other than that she’s the same as she always is when they find each other, stable and solid despite the uncertain light in her eyes. He’s grateful for that. She’s the one steady thing in this world that seems more and more like it’s crumbling to pieces around him.

But instead of professing all that, Solaire forces himself to keep his tone light and says, “Oh, hello there. I'm glad to see you alive.”

Reliably as clockwork a blush rises to Elizabeth’s cheeks and she laughs, “It’s good to see you made it back from Anor Londo as well! I ended up going down a couple detours, but I’m still in one piece! I even found this,” Elizabeth swung her dragon’s tooth over her shoulders with deceptive ease, “So I can’t say they were a loss!”

The moment the weapon falls across her shoulders at _just_ that angle Solaire’s mouth starts moving of its own accord; “That belonged to Havel the Rock.”

Elizabeth’s smile falls and she quirks a brow; “Who?”

“He was a knight of Gwyn, a close compatriot of the God King himself,” Solaire answers without thinking, “He and his knights all wore heavy stone armor and were the frontline defenders against magical threats. Havel tore that dragon’s tooth out of a downed foe’s maw himself during the war. It was a rite of passage for his knights to find their own tooth from their own dragon.” The fog rolls in again and Solaire’s tongue goes still, but he frowns hard behind his helmet. This wasn’t the first time he’d been able to answer an unasked question.

Elizabeth blinks in surprise before smiling again; “My, you know so much about Lordran, Solaire. Where did you learn it all?”

“I…” He can’t answer her question, so he doesn’t even try to, “Never mind that. You have done well, indeed you have. You've a strong arm, strong faith, and most importantly, a strong heart. I am in awe, really.”

Her blush grows darker and her smile gains a mischievous tilt as she wonders, “Do you think this Havel would think I’m worthy of a dragon’s tooth?”

“No,” Solaire’s answer comes too quickly and he curses it as her smile falls, “He despised humans. Most of the Gods did. But not all of them.”

“Oh, really? Which ones liked us?”

Solaire can’t answer her. He knows the answer but it won’t come now matter how hard he tries to pull it forward with all of his strength. Just like it does when he tries to see past what he means when he says he’s looking for his own sun, something that grows more and more troubling as all he can deduce is that whatever ‘his sun’ is, it isn’t here.

“Solaire? What is it?” Elizabeth touching Solaire’s shoulder gives him a startle that almost sends him tumbling over the balcony. She almost drops her dragon’s tooth in fear that he will. 

He shakes his head rapidly and tries to collect himself; “Forgive me, I was just pondering... about my poor fortune.” 

Elizabeth cocks her head to the side and he sighs, leaning on the chest-high wall; “I did not find my own sun, not in Anor Londo, nor in Twilight Blighttown. Where else might my sun be? Lost Izalith, or the Tomb of the Gravelord…?” 

Elizabeth purses her lips in thought for a moment before she turns a regretful look his way; “Anor Londo seems like it would’ve been the best place for a sun to be, but if you couldn’t find it _there_ then…” 

“Then there’s not much hope of finding it anywhere,” Solaire completes the sentence since she’s far too kind to do it herself, “Yes, I’ve considered that. In truth I’ve thought of nothing else for the past… hour, maybe? Perhaps longer, time _is_ convoluted, after all…” 

Solaire clenches his hands into fists; “But I cannot give up. I became Undead to pursue this,” yet he tilts his eyes up to the sun and his determination doesn’t last, “But when I peer at the Sun up above, it occurs to me... What if I am seen as a laughing stock, as a blind fool without reason?” 

He smiles, a wan and anemic thing he’s glad his helmet lets him keep to himself; “Well, I suppose they wouldn't be far off!” Forcing up his old self-effacing laugh almost hurts– it _definitely_ hurts when he catches sight of Elizabeth’s heartbroken face from the corner of his eye. She shifts from foot to foot, holding her dragon’s tooth in a tight yet fidgety grip as she worries her lower lip with her teeth. After an age of what he supposes is contemplation Elizabeth leans her dragon’s tooth against the wall and looks him in the eye.

“Solaire…” Elizabeth slowly reaches out for one of his hands with both of hers and, after pausing to see if he’d jump again, takes it gingerly, “I won’t pretend to know what you mean when you speak about your sun. But I know one thing for certain– You’re _not_ a fool. Hang anyone who thinks different.”

Solaire wishes it was safer. He wishes they were at Firelink Shrine so he’d know they were far enough from danger to take his helmet off and let Elizabeth see the smile she’d brought to his face. He wishes he was the sort of man who would be brave enough to show this woman he absolutely could _not_ disappoint his face even then. Maybe the man who’d stood at Gwyn’s tomb could’ve done it. But he’s not sure that man would’ve _wanted_ to.

Solaire puts his other hand over both of hers and says, “It’s a shame you had to come here, Elizabeth– a land like this doesn’t deserve someone as kind as you.”

Her smile is brilliant enough to blind him and he wants to stare at her until it does.

They can both feel the connection between their worlds fraying, time shaking like a leaf in the wind, so she quickly lets go of his hand, collects her weapon, and bids him a short farewell as she turns and scurries to the entryway. But she stops. Elizabeth pauses in the threshold and turns to him with an expression he’s used to seeing, but not from her.

Suspicion. 

It’s not a look he likes on her.

She faces him; “Solaire… You said that you… _became_ Undead to find your sun. As if you _chose_ to. How does someone become Undead on purpose? What did you mean by–?”

For the first time, Solaire is glad that their worlds pull apart mid-sentence. Because that’s another answer he can’t give her.

* * *

_In another time, another world, with another friend, Solaire’s quest for the sun would have ended in failure._

_At his lowest point he would have been seduced by a false idol, and in his madness turned on his dear companion. They would have had no choice but to strike him, one of few who had shown them love in this barren world, down. They would have wept for their poor friend, for his despair and his downfall, but kept going steadily forward. What other choice could they have? For him, for themselves, for everyone, they had to keep moving forward…_

_But one thing can always be counted upon, and that is Elizabeth of Catarina._

_One can always count on her to be senselessly, foolishly, selflessly kind._

_That kindness lead her to hide skinny calves from her father’s slaughtering axe. It lead her to leave her troupe in the dead of night without a word for the Northern Asylum._

_It lead her to trusting Lautrec despite everything. It lead her to weeping harsh, burning tears as she cut him down._

_It lead her to being twice tricked by Patches and giving him two second chances he didn't deserve._

_It would lead her to coming back to a lonely, blind, pained witch whenever she could, and giving her all the Humanity she could spare because maybe, just maybe, it could ease her suffering._

_It would lead her to a door that otherwise would not open for her, and to a glowing vermin she would crush without a thought._

* * *

“… Why? … _Why?_ … After all this searching, I still cannot find it…” 

His words fall on no other ears but his own here in the depths of the Demon Ruins. He stares out across the swathes of lava and pretends that perhaps, maybe, this is what the surface of a sun looks like. Maybe he hasn’t been walking in useless circles. Maybe he’s closer than he’d ever been up above.

Maybe heat and starvation and exhaustion are getting to him. Maybe he’s so desperate that he’s starting to believe his own lies.

His vision swims and the red in front of him falls into blackness. His mind is quiet for a blessed moment. When the black curtain lifts the first thing Solaire sees are the bones that make the base of a bonfire, and he stares at it for far too long.

He died. He died in a way he hadn’t allowed himself to for quite some time. 

He’s losing his grip.

Solaire knows no other way but forward, so he stands and turns back towards the molten earth. He drifts through the ruins, gaze unfocused and swings of his sword wide, loose, sloppy. He bests the centipede in his own world and barely even notices when Elizabeth summons him to face the creature again. He feels her concerned eyes on him as she watches him fight more than he sees them.

And then he dies.

Again.

It was a blow he could’ve dodged, one Elizabeth could’ve taken, one that might’ve missed had he stayed where he was. But he threw himself in the way regardless. The last thing he sees before that blessed quiet dark is Elizabeth’s face twisted in muffled, garbled horror as she screamed a sound near enough to his name.

Horror isn’t a look he likes on her either.

He wakes at the bonfire, and for a moment he drifts on the surface of the lake. The waters are calm still. But then he takes his helmet off and it becomes choppy once again. He’s seen Elizabeth after she’s died. Her skin dries out, her face thins, her pallor goes from olive to leather. Solaire sees his face in the reflections off his helmet– His skin is still fair and smooth and drenched in sweat, and his cheeks have yet to sink inward.

He recalls how the Undead at Firelink would gripe about their Darksigns, how they would burn all through the night, how even when they weren’t anywhere near hollow they felt small prickles of pain move in even, certain circles along its black outline.

Solaire feels nothing from the brand in the center of his back.

Solaire moves forward once again, even though it feels like trying to wade through chest-deep mud. 

Something comes to him through the fog, from the lakebed– _There’s a faster way to Izalith_. That should’ve been a relief. Instead it makes Solaire’s stomach twist. 

As he retraces steps far larger than his own he wonders why he’s bothering. It’s not there. He knows it isn’t. It wasn’t in the Tomb of the Gravelord– if it was, that thief that’d kicked him into the pit would’ve taken it, and even he couldn’t hide a sun in his deep black garb. You can’t hide light in darkness without snuffing it out completely. You can only drown it out with brighter light, and the glow of lava is nowhere near bright enough.

He ends up stumbling, falling to his knees in the corridor. Solaire is halfway to Izalith, but he doesn’t make a move to stand. What would be the point? There’s nothing for him there.

Perhaps there had never been anything for him anywhere.

Even those telltale steps coming down the corridor from Izalith don’t put him at ease. For once, it makes it worse.

“Solaire?” Elizabeth’s voice is full of concern where relief should be, and he wants to apologize. He doesn’t. She doesn’t feel real beside him. Everything around him feels like the memory of a nightmare. He stares with his eyes facing back the way he came and realizes it had _always_ felt that way. Nothing in this Godsforsaken wreck of a land had ever felt right, especially not him. Too small to walk where Gods had tread, too large to sit among mortals…

Had a place where he fit ever existed? Had it disappeared somewhere years and years ago, taking his sun with it?

Once more he speaks without thought and just this once he doesn’t care enough to regret it; “Was it all a lie? Have I done this all for nothing? Oh, my dear sun…” he looks up at Elizabeth and meets her eyes through the slit in his helmet, “What now? What should I do?” 

His eyes drift back down towards the ground; “… My sun… My dear, dear sun…”

He doesn’t hear Elizabeth move, and from the corner of his eye he can see her wringing her hands. The petite woman stands there for a little while, shifting from foot to foot and fiddling with her fingers, until she takes a deep breath and sits down beside him. Elizabeth opens her mouth and reaches out– but stops. She places her hand on the ground, halfway between the two of them, and worries her lip with her teeth as she looks down.

Finally, she looks up and meets his eye; “Solaire, when I was dropped here in Lordran, in my way I was also looking for a sun,” she lets out a nervous laugh, “Not a _real_ sun, no, I don’t know what I’d _do_ with one. But I was looking for what the sun can be, what it… can _mean_.” 

He almost smiles. Of course a bard would look for something poetic.

“I was looking for something to guide me, to light my way and help me keep living in this cold, empty place. And after a little while…” she smiles, small and nervous but absolutely real, “I met you.”

Solaire’s head whips around to look at her and with wide eyes the only word he can think to say is, “What?”

Her cheeks darken immediately, but she keeps going; “When I met you, right away I was struck by how even in a place like Lordran, you were willing to be kind to a stranger. And I’ll be honest, there’s so much about you that’s a mystery to me, but what I do know is that the kindness I saw in you was real. Every time we’ve fought together you’ve proven yourself to be brave and strong, and every time we’ve spoken I’ve seen that you’re compassionate and true.” 

Elizabeth tucks a lock of hair behind her ear with shaking fingers, her face a deep red; “You inspire me. I’ve found myself pushing forward through Lordran not just to get to the First Flame but so I can see you again. There have been moments when I’ve been taken advantage of and I’ve thought I should give up on people, but I remember the chance you gave me and how good it felt to be trusted and I stay on my path. Solaire…” she looks him in eye and doesn’t flinch away, “You are my sun.”

His breath catches in his throat. 

* * *

_A God cannot be made human._

_Gods and humans were more different than perhaps even they would ever know. Gods were great beings filled with unimaginable light and humans were their shadows, small and humble and quiet. Light and shadow never truly mixed, one never became the other. They just chased each other endlessly, giving and taking, touching but never intertwining._

_Gwyn knew this. He’d always known this. And he’d known that the only way to get rid of Gwynedd for good, the only way to keep the whelp from undermining his rule, from fracturing their already brittle power when they most needed it to remain whole, would’ve been to kill him._

_But he remembered how his wife, the only Goddess who had ever earned the title of Queen instead of simple concubine or consort, had beamed at him with a radiance that rivaled the God King’s own after her long and difficult labor. She’d held Gwynedd close to her breast and marveled at how beautiful he was. She’d been at her son’s side in every moment, including her last._

_Gwynevere resembled her in almost every way, from her flaming hair to her amber eyes to her graceful walk and soft voice._

_But Gwynedd had her smile, and he had her heart._

_A God cannot be made human. Godhood can never be taken away. But the people didn’t know this. And Gwynedd didn’t know this. So Gwyn dimmed the God Prince’s light down to the tiniest, weakest of embers instead._

_That was all he could bear to do to his only son._

* * *

Solaire is at the bottom of the lake. 

Now he breathes effortlessly, and his eyes are wide open. The light of the sun was never above the water’s surface but here at the lake floor. He reaches out and takes it in his hands, presses the light into himself and all at once realizes that he was right and he was wrong– The sun was the truth. It was light and life, it was everything Gwyn could never take from him, only hide, diminish, make so small that it could never be found. But never snuff out. Not without taking him with it. 

The sun is a God King dying alone and in pain who for everything he was deserves to see his son one last time.

It all floods back into him, at once a raging waterfall and gentle stream. He stands across from himself on the lakebed, looking over the God Prince Gwynedd and wondering if he’s still that man. 

He Remembers the bloody swathes carved in enemy armies with a boisterous laugh, the women used and discarded and never thought of again, the sense that because the throne would one day be his that it was as good as his already, and that meant he could do whatever he wanted. Regret hits him with the force of a tidal wave and he can’t deny that once upon a time he was that man.

Solaire won’t deny the blood on his hands. He won’t deny that so long ago he was no better than the beasts on two legs he fought every night in Astora.

But he Remembers the feeling of his hand ruffling Gwynevere’s auburn hair, hair so much like their mother’s that he could see fire dancing in it when the light hit her just right. He Remembers laughing with Artorias and Ornstein after a battle they barely pulled themselves through, and taking blows to save the lives of his Warriors of Sunlight because he knew they’d kill a man but a God could survive them easily. He Remembers before he gave up trying desperately to pull a smile out of Gwyndolin, and how his heart would sing when the corners of their mouth would just barely twitch. 

He Remembers all of this alongside the love he was shown after his banishment, and he knows who he is did not come from nowhere.

When he was young, when he made many mistakes, the name Gwynedd suited him. It was given to him not by a radiant God King but by an equally flawed man; a man who had banished him not because of the severity of his crime, but because he’d seen too much of himself in his son’s desperate act. 

Solaire was a name given to him by a woman who had seen his worth and taught him to be better, who had come to love him for who he became and let him go when the time came for him to meet his destiny. Solaire was a name given strength and purpose by the soft voice of the woman beside him, by every time she’d called it out triumphantly at the end of a bloody battle, every time she’d said it through a breathless adoring laugh, every time it had come through her smile.

Gwynedd was behind him. Solaire was now, and Solaire was ahead.

Solaire can feel himself being pushed into another world, another time far removed from this moment. Elizabeth is shuddering in and out of time in front of him, about to disappear at any second–

Solaire puts a hand on the ground, and the shuddering comes to a halt. He won’t leave her. Not like this.

Now that he Remembers, now that he Knows, he’s never going to be at the mercy of time again.

Solaire brings his hands up and slowly removes his helmet. He can see Elizabeth’s eyes go wide, her jaw falling to the floor and her face somehow turning a deeper shade of red as she finally sees his face. He shakes out his long golden ponytail and smiles over at Elizabeth; she’s trying to form sentences, but he can tell that she’s not going to succeed.

“Elizabeth,” he begins, and at the sound of his voice no longer muffled by steel her mouth snaps shut. She stares and listens like a cleric attending to the word of the Gods… he lets out a small chuckle. That’s not so far off the mark. Solaire gently brings his hand up and runs it through Elizabeth’s thick brown hair; she leans into it without a thought, still staring awestruck at his face.

Solaire leans in and helps her meet him halfway, pressing his forehead to hers as he whispers from the bottom of his heart, “ _Thank you_.” 

He does not know what comes next– the Gods were omnipotent, never omniscient. He imagines things would’ve been much simpler for his family if they had been.

The only way Solaire knows is forward. He stands and takes Elizabeth up with him so they can walk that way together.

The Sun and his companion chase the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For as short as this fic sort of is this took way longer to finish than it should've.


End file.
